Skepticism in Afghanistan about our big crackdown:

Afghans Insist Escape Routes Still Open

Despite a crackdown involving tens of thousands of troops and a pledge by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to do all he can in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Afghans say a steady stream of Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives are finding a safe haven on Pakistan's side of the 2,000-mile border.

The Afghan border chief gestures toward a fresh spray of bullet holes across his pickup truck, then points toward the place he says the Taliban attackers came from: Pakistan.

"See the trees? They started from that border post,'' said Palawan, his head shaved. Afterward, "the vehicles came from there, and took the Taliban away.''

...The U.S. military has described [its Afghan] strategy as a "hammer and anvil'' approach, with Pakistani troops moving into semiautonomous tribal areas on their side of the border, and Afghans and American forces sweeping the forbidding terrain on the other.

But Palawan and other Afghan security officials say they aren't convinced, insisting Pakistan's security and intelligence services are rife with Taliban and al-Qaida sympathizers....

Some Afghans say Pakistan's security and intelligence services make a distinction between turning away al-Qaida members--many of them Arabs foreign to the region--and turning away their former Taliban allies seeking shelter.

"I don't think there's been a fundamental shift in the perception of the Taliban in the Pakistan military,'' said Vikram Parekh, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Kabul, the Afghan capital. "That's going to be the big problem,'' -- whether Pakistan's military "draws a line between al-Qaida and the Taliban.'' ...

--AP